The Realtime Data view allows you to quickly confirm a campaign has launched, monitor spend drops and increases, and immediately see the impact of your campaign adjustments. Realtime Data shows performance up to the last 3 minutes, with options to display data over the last 1 hour, 6 hours, 24 hours, and full day.

You can access the Realtime Data view on the left-hand side of the Amplify Dashboard.

How can I use the Realtime Data dashboard?

1. See the impact of campaign changes: Immediately analyze how changes to your campaign CPC, creatives, bid strategy, and more impact your overall campaign performance in real time. 
2. Confirm that your campaign has launched: Check the Realtime Data screen to verify that your campaign has begun spending, especially around time-sensitive events and offers. 
3. Quickly troubleshoot spend drops and spikes: Keep a pulse on your campaign spend over time, and more quickly adjust your campaign strategy.
4. Monitor network fluctuations: See minute-by-minute changes to Outbrain network traffic across various platforms (mobile, desktop, tablet) to capitalize on surges across various times of day and events.

• *Stay tuned: More network-level insights will be coming to Realtime Data soon!

What is shown in the Realtime Data dashboard?

The top half (shown below) of the Realtime Data view shows your campaign metrics in real time, including impressions, spend, average CPC, average CPA, click-through-rate, conversion-rate, as well as clicks and conversions. You can adjust this view to show trends over the past hour, 6 hours, and 24 hours. 

The bottom half (shown below) of the Realtime Data view shows network-level trends across the Outbrain network; specifically, traffic over time across mobile, tablet, and desktop. This view can also be refreshed to show the past hour, 6 hours, and 24 hours. *Stay tuned: More network-level insights will be coming to Realtime Data soon!

What time zone is the data displayed in?

The Realtime Data Dashboard is displayed in your local browser’s timezone. This is notably different from our standard Dashboard reporting, which is displayed in Eastern Time.

If there are delays in standard Dashboard/campaign reporting, will Realtime Data also be delayed? 

No! A large benefit of our Realtime Data reporting capability is the fact that it remains unaffected when any delays may occur within standard Dashboard reporting. 

Do you have feedback on how we could improve this feature?

We’re welcoming feedback as we continue to build out network-level insights within Realtime Data. If you have thoughts or ideas, please leverage the feedback option at the bottom of the Realtime Data screen:

The post How to Use The Realtime Data Dashboard appeared first on English (US).

Find the Smartad format that’s right for you

Standard Smartad

Standard Smartads are the bread and butter to Outbrain’s offering and provide a clean and simple way to showcase your offering. Reach your audience, drive leads, and boost sales with quality images, engaging copy, and an optional call-to-action button.

Carousel Smartad

Carousel Smartads allow you to showcase up to 10 images at a time to tell a brand story while driving real results. This rich advertising experience enables you to get more ad space within a single Outbrain Smartad while also driving action through optional CTAs.

App Install Smartad

With CTA buttons, brand logos, app store ratings, and both GIF and static images – The App Install Smartad features more ways than ever to drive engagement. This robust Smartad format provides a clear path to action to increase app installs from high LTV consumers.

Outstream Video

Increase reach and maximize awareness with Outbrain’s Outstream video. The Outstream video format starts playing once it is in-view to ensure that the consumer is engaged and to avoid an interruptive ad experience.

Click-to-Watch Video

Let consumers interact with your brand through an immersive and interactive video experience that drives meaningful engagement and concrete results. This video format is best suited for longer-form videos as it is 100% user-initiated — and only plays when a user opts-in and “clicks to watch.”

Ready to get discovered? Reach out to support@outbrain.com or your Outbrain representative!

The post Which Smartad should I use to meet my goals? appeared first on English (US).

This new ad format is available in the Amplify Dashboard to select when creating a campaign, in the same way as Standard and Carousel Smartads. The App Install Smartad supports both GIFs and static images, as well as brand logo, CTA button, and average app store rating — giving marketers more ways than ever to spark engagement and drive results.

Want to get started? Read on!

Setting Up an App Install Smartad Campaign

Just as you would set up any other campaign, start by selecting “Add Campaign” in the top right-hand corner.

• Add Campaign

• Select the “App Install” campaign objective. Be sure to select App Install, as the App Install Smartad will not appear as a creative format option for other objectives.

  • For a full explanation of campaign objectives and how they work, visit this Help Center article.

• Once you’ve selected “App Install” you’ll be prompted to select your creative format
  • Select “App Install”

• Next, choose your Conversion Bid Strategy. Selecting a Conversion Bid Strategy option is required for App Install Smartad campaigns.
  • Conversion Bid Strategy is a great way to allow Outbrain’s algorithm to automatically optimize toward your performance objectives. For App Install campaigns, we recommend selecting the Conversion Bid Strategy mode that’s aligned with your specific goal (whether it be to hit a specific CPA or generally maximize conversions). Read more about the various Conversion Bid Strategy modes in this Help Center article!
• Enter your CPC – Please note that the minimum CPC for App Install campaigns is $0.15, though we recommend launching with a higher CPC and later optimizing down.

• Continue by filling out all other campaign scheduling and targeting options in the same way that you do for standard amplify campaigns. If you need a refresher on setting up a campaign, you can visit the Campaign Set-up Help Center article.

• Please note: App Install campaigns only run across mobile traffic (selecting Desktop under Platform Targeting will not ensure your campaign runs on Desktop).
  
• Third-party app partner tracking (Appsflyer, Adjust, Branch) is also supported and recommended. 

• Once you’ve completed each step of the campaign set up, click “Next: App Install” to build your App Install Card

• You’ll be brought to the Content Creation screen – You can create this card in the same way that you create standard Amplify content: enter your app store URL, “Sponsored By,” headline, logo, and image or GIF. Detailed specs for each element are listed below:

  • Image: Up to 1200px, in a 1:1 ratio (display size is 300x300px)
  • GIF: Maximum file size of 12 MB
  • Headline: Maximum 150 characters
  • Sponsored By: Maximum 25 characters
  • CTA Button: Selected from a predefined list: Apply Now, Book Now, Contact Us, Download, Learn More, Get Quote, Shop Now, Sign Up, Watch More, Listen Now, Subscribe, RSVP, Register Now, Install App, Read more, Play Game, Donate Now, Order Now, Join Now
  • Brand Logo: Minimum 40x40px, maximum 400x400px, 1:1 ratio
  • App Store Average Rating (OPTIONAL): Check the “Store Rating: Include” box on the content creation screen. Your creative will then display the average rating your app has received in the app store. *Please note this is only supported if the landing page is the App Store*
  • For more information about how to upload content, reference this Help Center article.

CTA buttons are supported in 10 languages! Including: English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish.

After you’ve completed all of the required fields and are happy with how your App Install unit appears in the preview, you can click “Launch Campaign” in the bottom right-hand corner.

Your App Install Card is now complete and ready for approval by our Content Team!

What’s Next?

• Your card will either be “approved,” “rejected,” or “pending” if edits are required
• If your card requires an edit, simply click the pencil next to the title

The post How do I set up an App Install Smartad Campaign? appeared first on English (US).

What is Target CPA?

Who Should Use Target CPA?

How do I Enable Target CPA?

How do I Control My Campaign With Target CPA?

Why is My Campaign’s CPA Not Reaching My Target CPA?

What is Target CPA?

Target Cost-Per-Acquisition is one of three modes that Outbrain offers for auto-optimizing towards conversions within Conversion Bid Strategy. Target CPA is exactly what it sounds like – simply enter your CPA goal, and our system will do the rest.

Target CPA works to keep your campaigns profitable by prioritizing cost per acquisition over getting the most out of your budget or maximizing conversions.

Who should use Target CPA?

If you are a performance marketer held to a strict CPA goal, then you would be a great fit for Target CPA! If you are looking to maximize conversions, and are less concerned about CPA, check out this Help Center article about Fully Automatic CBS.

How do I enable Target CPA?

During campaign setup, after selecting your Campaign Objective, and your Creative Format, there will be a section labeled “Budgets”

There, you will see three options from a drop-down menu within the Conversion Bid Strategy: Fully Automatic, Semi Automatic CBS or Target CPA.

Then, select your conversion (1) that you wish to optimize towards. For more information about the conversion setup process, please visit this Help Center article. If you’re looking for broader information regarding conversions and pixel implementation, please refer here!

How do I control my campaign with Target CPA enabled?

If your CPA stays high for several days in a row and you see that your campaign’s optimized CPC is not changing (or has little changes) – reduce your budget to a level you feel that our network can utilize. If your CPA is hitting or exceeding the goal, increase your budget to get more conversions!

Why is My Campaign’s CPA Not Reaching My Target CPA?

Have you noticed that your campaign’s actual CPA is not getting to your target CPA? This might be because of the lack of data for Outbrain’s algorithm to work. If so, you’ll see a notification under the Objective & Optimization section of the campaign screen of either “learning” or “low conversion data.”

What does “Learning” mean?

• If the system tells you that your campaign is “learning” this is OK – it just means that your campaign was launched recently and the system is still gathering data for optimization
• Please note that the “learning” phase for Target CPA may last for about a week after launch

What does “Low Conversion Data” mean?

• If the system tells you that your campaign has “low conversion data” this means that recently your campaign has slowed to a low number of conversions 

Please check the following campaign details to ensure that we can collect enough data to optimize towards your target CPA:

• Is the pixel implemented correctly? For pixel implementation guidance, please check out this help center article
• Is the pixel triggering on all platforms?
• Is your funnel too long? Try adding more conversion pixels along the conversion journey to shorten the funnel

Important to Note:

• To bring you to your target CPA, while maintaining the highest number of conversions for that CPA, the system will adjust the CPC for each serving based on multiple data points, in addition to adjusting the campaign’s (base) CPC.
• There are cases where the system can get more conversions within your CPA, therefore the system raises the CPC (you’ll see it as “optimized CPC”). When the Optimized CPC reaches the Maximum CPC threshold, the system will no longer be able to raise the CPC. If you want to get more conversions with your target CPA, you will need to raise the Entered CPC (we recommend raising it to be the same as the Optimized CPC) so that the algorithm can continue optimizing.

The post What is Target CPA Conversion Bid Strategy? appeared first on English (US).

Headline Best Practices:

• Outbrain supports headlines up to 150 characters. However, we recommend between 70-90 characters (the shorter the better)
• Use questions to encourage engagement
  • Example: Looking to Invest Your Money? Read Here for Advice
• Include numbers when relevant, specifically odd numbers (10 and under)
  • Example: 5 Powerhouse States Reducing Emissions From Power
• Try using dynamic headlines to personalize the user experience. Dynamic headlines can be location-based or include day-of-the-week
  • Example: ${city}$ Loves This Mattress
  • Example: Sale on Cars This ${dayofweek}$ at New York Auto
• Include your target audience in the headline to pre-qualify users without reducing your scale
  • Example: Millennials: Are You Looking to Buy a House?
• Negative words such as “never” “worst” and “avoid” tend to perform better than positive words
  • Example: 3 Things to Avoid When Car Shopping

Things to Avoid in Headlines:

• Do not promise anything in your headlines without a trusted resource
  • Example: 9 Out of 10 Doctors Recommend Our Product (with no data/hard facts)
• Excessive or missing capitalization
  • Example: “LEARN MORE.” A correct replacement would be “Learn More.”
• Inaccurate, misleading, or overly sensational headlines
  • Example: One Weird Trick That Will Melt Away Belly Fat

Image Best Practices:

• Dimensions: 1200 x 800px is the supported image size for Outbrain inventory
• Images should have a 1×1 pixel ratio
• Always use a high-resolution image
• Lifestyle images tend to perform better than cartoons or stock images
• If you’re promoting a product, try including it in the image – something tangible that’s displayed in an attractive way engages consumers to click
• Portraits work better than people in action
• Try using close-up images rather than wider shots

Things to Avoid in Images:

• Avoid using images with text in them
• Do not use images that are unrelated to the headline and/or landing page
• Avoid logos or promotional messaging

Landing Page Best Practices:

• Always lead to relevant landing pages to avoid high bounce-rates
• Limit “click out” opportunities such as ads, and pop-ups that drive away from the main goal
• For lead generation, drive to sign-up landing pages
• If your goal is to drive sales, drive to product or service pages
• For brand awareness, leading to earned media tends to perform well
• For conversion-focused goals, include easy-to-spot call-to-actions

Carousel Best Practices:

• Create Carousels with 3-5 cards as users tend to drop off after that
• Test different CTA’s
• Lead to several landing pages within the Carousel

Video Best Practices:

• For longer-form videos (:30-5:00) use Click-To-Watch video because the user is initiating the view and is in consumption mode
• For shorter-form videos (:05-:30) use Outstream video

For campaign best practices, please refer to this Help Center Article.

The post What are Outbrain’s Best Practices for Creating Content? appeared first on English (US).

Campaign Set-up Best Practices

Content:

• We suggest launching with 5-10 pieces of content in each campaign to enhance exploration of the content
• If your goals are conversion-focused, we suggest including a CTA  button in addition to your headline and image. To learn more visit this page

Scheduling:

• Launching campaigns Monday-Wednesday is suggested because these days of the week tend to have the most traffic on the Outbrain Network and increase chances of your content serving

Targeting:

• Always separate campaigns out by targeting
  • Layering on too many targeting tactics will limit the scale
  • Example: Interest Targeting in one campaign, Lookalikes in another etc.
    Please note, one user can fall within several interest categories, so we don’t recommend excluding interest categories
• Be specific with campaign names so that you’re able to distinguish between targeting tactics and devices, etc.
  • Example: If it’s a retargeting and desktop campaign, try naming it: Q2 Retargeting Desktop Campaign

By Device/Platform:

• Try breaking campaigns out by the device
• We recommend pairing desktop and tablet together as they tend to have similar CTR’s. But we recommend targeting mobile users separately since the user behavior is vastly different
• CPC’s tend to differ between desktop and mobile devices – breaking out campaigns allows for more control over CPC
• For App clients: make sure you segment out based on App compatibility (Android/iOS)

CPC/Bid Strategy:

• Launch with competitive CPC’s – they will be optimized down!
  • If you’re adding layered targeting, your CPC’s need to be competitive
• Is your campaign conversion based? If so, we suggest using Conversion Bid Strategy – to learn more please visit this Help Center article!

Best Practices Once Your Campaign is Live (On the Campaign Level):

• Monitor capping times within campaigns and increase budget accordingly to extend the “on-air” time
• If you wish to lower Campaign CPC’s, do not decrease them more than 10% in one day as this could make the campaign drop off
• Monitor Publishers/Sections and increase CPC bidding on top performers / lower CPCs on inefficient performers
• Monitor Campaign CTRs to make sure they are at or above your target

Best Practices Once Your Campaign is Live (On the Content Level):

• 2-3 days after launch, we recommend pausing out low-performing content pieces
  • Example: Content with little to no spend, low CTR’s, high CPA, etc.
• After a week of traffic, pause out content that doesn’t meet your KPI’s
  • Example: CPA on 2-3 pieces of content is well over the goal (if CPA is your KPI)
• Feel free to duplicate top-performing content or upload 2-5 pieces of new content (while still trying not to exceed 10 live content pieces per campaign)

For content best practices, check out this article, and please be sure to refer to our advertiser guidelines here before submitting content!

The post What are Outbrain’s Campaign Best Practices? appeared first on English (US).

By ensuring marketer content appears only in single-ad placements surrounded by organic content,  marketers have greater control over where their content appears and can eliminate adjacency concerns.

How do I target High Impact placements?

Within your campaign set-up screen, scroll down to the Placement section. You’ll have the option to select the following checkbox:

It’s very important to note that your campaign will run exclusively in High Impact placements if this checkbox is selected. For this reason, High Impact placements are not best suited for marketers with extensive scale goals.

Are there any requirements for High Impact placements?

Yes, High Impact placements have a minimum CPC of $1 USD.

Where will my High Impact campaigns run?

Campaigns targeting High Impact placements will be shown in brand-exclusive placements across Outbrain’s premium publisher sites, as described above. These placements appear either in-article (within organic publisher content) or in-Smartfeed, between two organic recommendations.

High Impact placements are always a single unit — your content will not appear next to advertiser paid content.

The post What are High Impact Placements? appeared first on English (US).

In this guide we will cover the following:

• Enabling Outbrain on the account level
• Setting up Private Deals
• Creating a Native Display ad
• Assigning your Native Display ad to a line item
• Native ad creative specs
• Creating a new line item
• Using private Deals to Target your Outbrain Deal ID
• Managing targeting settings
• Troubleshooting

Make Sure Outbrain is Enabled on the Account Level

First, you’ll need to enable access to BidSwitch Inventory on the account level, as Outbrain supply is accessible via BidSwitch.

Set Up Private Deals

Make sure you complete the following steps when setting up your private deal with Outbrain:

• Go to “My Inventory” > Choose “New non-guaranteed inventory”

• Then, fill out the “New inventory source” form. Be sure to:
  • Give your deal a distinctive name
  • Choose “BidSwitch” as the Exchange
  • Type in the Deal ID exactly as it was provided to you by Outbrain
  • Enter the agreed upon floor price and choose US Dollars for currency
  • Type “Outbrain” in the seller name field
  • Choose “Private auction” for inventory type

For “Inventory access,” we recommend selecting all of your partner accounts and their advertisers, unless this deal is for one specific partner or advertiser.

Create a Native Display Ad

Make sure you follow DV360’s detailed guidelines for Native site creatives, outlined here.

Assign a Native Display Ad to Your Line Item

Create and assign your line item with at least one native display ad creative.

Native Ad Creative Specifications

When assigning creatives to your line items, you’ll need to make sure your creative meets Outbrain’s requirements.

Important specifications to note are:

• Description (Body Text) is only partially supported.

Description (Body Text) is partially supported across the Outbrain network. This means that if you choose to fill out the Body Text field, it will not be shown across all Outbrain placements, only the select publisher placements which support it. For this reason, you should make sure your headline can stand alone.

• One headline is required for each ad

Only one headline will render with each of your ads. Your headline should be engaging and able to stand alone. For this reason, Outbrain recommends using the “long headline” field.
Note: If you want to ensure your ad renders for all formats, it is best to fill out both the short “headline” and “long headline” fields, so that your ad displays for all widget types.

• Never use images with text within them
  To create the best possible ad experience, Outbrain does not approve images that contain text within them. Ensure any necessary text is in your headline.

Cropping adjustments for DV360:

Important: DV360 uses custom creative image specs for native formats: 1200px x 627px. This differs from the Outbrain standard format of 1200px x 800px. In order to ensure your image is not distorted and cropped, you should:

• Ensure your image does not contain text or logos within it
• Add padding to your image if you are concerned about edges being cropped: add padding of 200px to each side of your image, as shown:

Make sure you preview your creative!
Check creative approval in DV360 and preview your ads before setting them live so that you don’t have any unpleasant surprises. DV360’s creative preview feature allows you to see all of the different ways your ad may appear — with and without descriptions and logos, short and long descriptions, etc.

Create a New Line Item

Follow your usual process on DV360 to create a new advertiser, or use an existing one and create a new line item.

Use Private Deals to Target Your Outbrain Deal ID

NOTE: If you select Outbrain as your supply source via BidSwitch under Public Inventory, DV360 will prioritize your spend towards Public Inventory (the Open Exchange), rather than towards your Outbrain deal. This will increase your spend exponentially on the Open Exchange, and will direct spend away from your Outbrain deal.

For this reason, you should ensure you are selecting Outbrain and your deal under Private Deals only.

Manage Targeting Settings

Make sure you do not turn on targeting settings in DV360 that are not supported for Outbrain inventory.

Targeting settings fully supported by Outbrain:

• Apps & URLs
• Keywords
• Categories
• Environment
• Language
• Audience Lists
• Geography
• Day & Time
• Demographics: NOTE – As of January 2020, DV360’s demographic targeting capabilities are not functional in the EU.
• Browser
• Device

Targeting settings not or partially supported for Outbrain Inventory as of June 2019:

• Brand Safety (using third-party vendors):
  Partially supported for native inventory sources
• Connection Speed:
  Not supported for Outbrain inventory
• Carrier & ISP:
  Not supported for Outbrain inventory
• Viewability (Based on Google’s “Active View”):
  Pre-bid is not supported at this stage, but viewability monitoring is supported. Ask your Outbrain representative about setting up a high-viewability PMP.

Brand Safety Targeting Settings

Make sure you understand which sub-features under the Brand Safety targeting features are supported and which are not.

Digital Content Label Exclusions – Supported

Sensitive Category Exclusions – Supported

Sensitive Verification Services – Partially Supported

For Integral Ad Science as the vendor:

• True Advertising Quality: Not supported. Will pause all delivery on any native inventory if turned on
• Brand Safety: Supported
• Ad Fraud Prevention: Supported
• Viewability: Pre-bid is not supported at this stage, but viewability monitoring is supported. Ask your Outbrain representative about setting up a high-viewability PMP.

For DoubleVerify as the vendor under Other Verification Services:

• DV Brand Safety Controls: Not supported. Will pause all delivery on any native inventory if turned on
• Display viewability: Not supported. Will pause all delivery on any native inventory if turned on
• Video viewability: Not supported. Will pause all delivery on any native inventory if turned on
• Fraud and invalid traffic: Supported

For Adloox as the vendor:

• Content categories: Not supported — in progress.

Troubleshooting

First, check these aspects of your campaign if you are having trouble scaling and performing:

• Check that your line item is targeting only your specified deal, to avoid open exchange demand competing with your deal.
• Verify your campaign budget and starting bid.
  • You’ll want to make sure that your bid is adequate to reach your target audience and KPIs.
• Next, make sure your targeting is not too restrictive, and that your filters are fully supported.
  • Avoid layering on too much targeting, and avoid using pre-bid filters, as they will interfere with campaign delivery.
  • Avoid keyword and demographic targeting as these options will limit scale as well.
• Check your bid rate and win rate.
  • If your win rate is too low, try increasing your CPM.
  • If your bid rate is too low, make sure your targeting is not too restrictive.
• Begin removing restrictive allow and block lists.
• Check your frequency capping and ensure it’s not too low.
• Increase your bids by about 10—15%, gradually adjusting until your campaign begins to hit your KPIs and scale.
• Verify that your creatives have been approved by your DSP.
• Check your creatives:
  • Refresh your images to test if new variations perform better.
  • Pause low-performing creatives.
  • Correlate your creative performance to your strategy: Do certain images perform better for engagement, and others for awareness? Adjust accordingly.

DV360-Specific Troubleshooting

If you’ve followed the above steps and are still experiencing issues, reach out to your DV360 support contact using the support form, which you can access from the “Contact Us” dropdown found here.

Be sure to include the following information when completing the support form and reaching out to DV360:

• Deal ID name
• OB Deal ID
• Partner ID
• Advertiser ID
• Insertion Order ID(s)
• Line Item ID(s)
• Agency/Buyer contact

Once you reach out to your Outbrain contact, Outbrain will escalate the issue through the appropriate DV360 channels as well.

The post How do I set up an Outbrain campaign with DV360? appeared first on English (US).

Campaign Settings

Campaign Settings will be appended to all newly created campaigns

• Suffix: You can enter your suffix tracking code for campaign-level tracking
• 3rd Party Pixels: Looking to capture your Outbrain campaign data and deliver it to outside platforms? Simply add your pixels here to help facilitate your marketing objectives
  • For more information, visit this Help Center article that explains 3rd party pixels more in-depth
• AdBlock: If you wish to exclude Adblock users from seeing your content on new campaigns, check off the box here.
  • This feature enables you to exclude users who have ad-blocking software installed. We do our best to ensure your content isn’t served to these users. However, when users target specific publisher sites, we are unable to detect an ad blocker, which may result in a small portion of traffic coming from these sources

Content Settings

• This is your brand, business or product name
• Changes will affect newly created content only
• For more information on content creation, please refer to this Help Center article

Conversion Settings

• Conversion Attribution Window: The maximum number of days between click and conversion
• Converters Segment: Check this box to create an audience pool of all of your converters over the past 30 days
• Need additional information on conversions? Read more here!

The post How do I use Account Settings in the Dashboard? appeared first on English (US).

NOTE that Xandr only supports targeting of Outbrain inventory in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. Buyers outside of these geos are welcome to target Outbrain inventory via Xandr within the listed markets above.

In this guide we will cover the following:

• Uploading Creatives
• Creative Specs
• Deal ID Set Up
• Troubleshooting

Xandr Console & Hierarchy

• The Xandr Console hierarchy is as follows: Advertisers > IO > Line Item. Within each layer, you set rules/targeting parameters that can affect the lower layers.
• Before uploading creatives and setting up your deal, be sure the applicable advertiser and line item(s) have been created

Uploading Native Creatives

Please follow the steps listed below:

• For creative set-up, go to Creative Manager > Select Advertiser > Create New > Select Format Native Single (one creative) or Native Bulk (multiple creatives). If creative is third-party served, click the “Third-Party URL” tab and enter the URL. Follow steps as listed above.
• Upload creative and preview
• Assign any third-party tracking – JS/Impression/Click tracking is supported
• Choose carefully when selecting the “Competitive Exclusions” classification. These are used to prevent creatives with competitive brands or categories from serving alongside each other and can therefore interfere with performance.
• Select creative audit/QA option.
• Click save.

Native Creative Specifications

Important creative specifications to note are:

• Description (Body Text) is only partially supported
  A description is partially supported across the Outbrain network. This means that your inputted Description/Body Text will not be shown across all Outbrain placements, only the select publisher placements which support it. For this reason, you should make sure your headline (title) can stand alone.
• One headline is required for each ad

Your headline should be engaging and able to stand alone. For this reason, Outbrain recommends using a longer headline (Title) with descriptive copy.

• Never use images with text within them
  To create the best possible ad experience, Outbrain does not approve images that contain text within them. Ensure any necessary text is in your headline.

Deal ID Set Up

• Follow the typical steps to create a New Deal.
• Once your Deal is set up, create a Line Item to target the deal provided.
• Go to Advertisers > Select Advertiser > Line Items > Basic Setup > Supply Strategy: Deals > then select “Specific Deals”

• Scroll down to Targeting > Deal > click “Edit” to open Deals Targeting

• Enter the Name or ID of a seller with deals available to you and select the seller (or scroll through the list of sellers) and select the seller.
• The seller’s (Outbrain’s) available deals will display in the Deals tab.
• To target (include or exclude) specific deals on the Deals tab:
  • Click the green check to include the deal
  • Click the red dash to exclude the deal
• Viewing Deal Details: The eye icon will allow you to review the deal status, ask price (aka the “floor”), etc.
• Enter remaining details > Basic Setup > Budget can be specified here, if set amount is desired for this line item. By default, the line item media budget is set as “unlimited.”

• Under the Revenue Type section, selecting the “CPM” option is best.
• Enter the fixed dollar amount to bid in the Revenue Value CPM field, making sure it is greater than or equal to the suggested minimum bid value for the deal + your buying fees.

• Specify any advanced targeting. Since the flow of impressions is already restricted, we recommend not adding advanced targeting.

• Add your respective creatives to the line item under Associated Creatives to set creative rotation preferences, landing URLs, etc.
• Build out a line item to ensure you’re building out your targeting parameters, goals and assigning creatives.

Troubleshooting

Activation and Under Delivery/Scaling Concerns?

• Run campaign ID in the Xandr Console Campaign Doctor app. To access the Campaign Doctor, follow these steps:
  • Apps Tab > Marketplace > Ad Operations under “Categories” and then install/launch “Campaign Doctor”
• Check settings in Partner Center to make sure you are not blocking a specific seller, like Outbrain.
  • Lack of available impressions.
  • Creative size mismatch.
  • Bidding below the pre-negotiated deal price agreed upon.
• Confirm the Deal type. In the line item’s “Basic Setup,” make sure the “Supply Strategy” is set to “Deals,” then select ‘Specific Deals.”
• Use the Debug Auction! A debug auction simulates a real auction without actually logging or serving anything. It then presents the results in your browser. The log shows the Impression Bug communicating with all active Bidders (including the Xandr Console) and then shows the member-specific decisioning.
• Access reporting: Select deal > My Actions > Show in Reporting.
  • When creating the report, make sure that you have selected Buyers as a dimension to display all buys which are targeting the respective deal, and which are successfully winning impressions. Utilize these learnings to troubleshoot set-up.

Stumped? Reach out to your TTD or Outbrain support contact(s). We are here to help! For more information regarding Outbrain’s programmatic offering, please refer to this Help Center Article.

The post How do I set up an Outbrain campaign with Xandr? appeared first on English (US).